Why Vacations Are Important: Improve Your Health and Productivity

America is a nation of workaholics. We take pride in hard work, initiative and achievement – proudly defending the “work hard, play hard” mentality. Yet, we’re not getting nearly enough “play” time to recharge and revitalize.

According to a recent study, 41 percent of Americans failed to use a total of 429 million days of paid time off in 2014.

Unused days off translate to overworked Americans who are stressed, unhappy and less productive at home and at work.

No-Vacation Nation Liability

Vacations can be great source of morale for businesses – allowing employees to recharge their batteries and replenish mental resources. However, recent data suggests two-thirds of workers receive negative, mixed, or no messages about taking paid time off from their company. In fact, a quarter of workers say they’re not “in ultimate control of their PTO.”

“While many employers understand the benefits of vacation, they’re not communicating or promoting utilization to their employees,” says Cait DeBaun, communications director for Project: Time Off, an initiative aimed at proving the personal, business and economic benefits of taking time off.

Aside from the lack of positive encouragement to take vacation, workers also cited severalimpediments from taking PTO:

40% of American workers cite the heavy workload awaiting their return as the top challenge in taking vacation.

35% don’t use their time off because they believe “nobody else can do the work while I’m away.”

28% percent of respondents do not use all their time off because they want to show complete dedication to the company and their job.

22% percent said they didn’t want others to see them as “replaceable.”

While vacation time is a precious commodity, it can also be a liability.

Unused paid time off also affects employee happiness, health, performance and productivity – all of which can negatively impact company success.

To help encourage change, several companies are introducing innovative vacation policies that provide incentives to employees to increase their quality of life, and attract talent.

Unlimited Vacation:

Netflix, a pioneer in this space, implemented their unlimited vacation program in 2004; Virgin Group, Gilt Groupe, and MGM Resorts International implemented similar programs more recently.

Minimum Vacation:

To ensure employees take vacation under unlimited policies, some companies have coupled the policy with a minimum vacation requirement. Since implementing a two-week minimum four years ago, Hubspot’s revenues have more than quadrupled.

Double-Pay Vacation:

Travelzoo offers their employees a $1,500 stipend to take trips on their vacation time. RAND Corporation, the Santa Monica-based research organization, pays employees an extra 3% of their monthly base salary for each vacation day taken and another 5% of their annual salary to employees who take all 20 days.

Health Benefits of Vacation

Multiple studies have long preached that vacation is good for your mind, body and soul.

“Vacations are not simply a frivolous indulgence, there’s increasing evidence that they’re crucial for good health,” says DeBaun.

She cites a study from the Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948 and now in its third generation of participants, and looked at 12,000 men who were at high risk for coronary heart disease and found that those who took frequent vacations lived longer. Those who failed to take annual vacations were 32 percent more likely to die of a heart attack.

In the same study, women who took vacation only once every six years or less were almost eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack – compared to women who vacationed at least twice a year.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Mind-Body Center surveyed 1,400 people and found that participants who enjoyed leisure activities – including vacations – were likely to have higher positive emotional levels, less depression, lower blood pressure and smaller waistlines.

In order to be our best, we need to take care of our physical and mental health, family life and our work/life balance.

Take your vacation time as seriously as your money:

Yes, time is money and money is time, but health is wealth. If you don’t properly manage your health now, you can damage your future wealth with significant medical costs.

Make PTO a priority by scheduling your vacations in advance:

Communicating with your boss and co-workers by identifying important project dates and deadlines at the beginning of each year, will help you manage your time for effectively and allow you to plan your vacation months ahead – saving you added guilt and stress.

Disconnect from work:

Part of recharging your batteries is disconnecting from work – completely. If you can’t manage to completely disengage, set check-in times so you can enjoy your down time and capture the moment.

DeBaun stresses that taking time off doesn’t have to mean extravagant vacations. “You can tack on a day during a business trip, or make your PTO local by visiting local state parks, museums, enjoying projects around the home that you can only tackle on the weekends, or even something as simple as having lunch with a friend.”

Taking vacation days can help refresh your mind and provide new perspective and a new sense of enthusiasm.

Do you take your allotted PTO days each year? Does taking vacation days make you feel guilty or stressed?

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Comments

4

1

Casey on
July 14, 2016 at
3:45pm

I love my vacation time, and I take all of it every year. It really is great for recharging my batteries, and I go back to work feeling refreshed. I would love if my employer offered the double-pay vacation! But they are already pretty generous with the PTO we get.

2

Ally on
July 15, 2016 at
9:11am

Hi Casey, we’re glad to hear that you take full advantage of your vacation time! Thanks for reading the blog and sharing your thoughts!

3

Sheryl on
July 16, 2016 at
8:50pm

Thanks for the article. We have trouble getting our vacations in because my husband has had an incredibly hard time finding people to hire. It seems nobody wants a job lately. He is a good manager that works his butt off but his company makes it difficult to hire employees. He can’t advertise the open position and then when people do apply they have to complete a long computer personality/skills type test. A lot of people quit 3/4 of the way through and don’t even finish. If they don’t finish he can not interview them. He will call some of them and ask them to finish the test if they are still interested, but to no avail. He is constantly trying to recruit customers or ask them if they know anybody interested in a job. He lost vacation days last year and will be losing days this year as well. He is getting very burned out. Not enough employees = no vacation. And this is for a simple retail job!
At my job my bosses don’t really believe in vacations. It is a “Mom & Pop” business and they haven’t taken a vacation themselves for 27 years! I’m afraid to ask. When I do ask I feel like I am really putting them out or she says “bad timing”. It is always bad timing! We haven’t taken a vacation in two years. I have thought about quitting quite often, but I’m still hanging on. The test will be when I ask for time off next week for a wedding in October. If they trouble me about it I will probably give my two weeks notice before I leave for the wedding. They tell me I’m a great employee, but if they want to keep me they have to set me free once in awhile to spend time with my family. My whole purpose in getting this job was not only for having some extra cash each month, but to be able to spend it on doing fun things when we go on vacation. It has kind of defeated the point.

4

Kathy on
July 19, 2016 at
4:16pm

My company provides a generous amount of PTO time, but people sometimes do not take days off because they feel that they must show that they are working very hard and that all they are thinking about is work. People send emails over weekends, at midnight, and when people on my team take days off, they always tell others to “call my cell phone” if needed, to show that they are so dedicated to work. Since there is a culture like that, people are more likely to take fewer days off.

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